


Ghosts & Reflections

by beautifulcyclopswife



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, POV Clara Oswin Oswald, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Soliloquy, Stream of Consciousness, and his questionable fashion choices, clara is sad about the doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulcyclopswife/pseuds/beautifulcyclopswife
Summary: Clara keeps bumping into her best friend. Turns out the Universe isn't so big after all.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald
Kudos: 8





	Ghosts & Reflections

I keep seeing you.  
  
I always think I’m wrong, at first. After all, it’s a big universe. What are the odds of us being in the same place, on the same planet, at the same time? Tiny. Miniscule. Back of a postage stamp. And yet…

I keep forgetting, you see. The reason this all happened in the first place. We’re too alike, always looking for the danger, running towards the explosions and the monsters and the things that don’t make sense. So, everywhere I go, you’re already there.

I like it when you’re young, even though you look so much older. All that “hmm”ing and tutting and being kind when you didn’t think anyone would notice.  
(I met Susan, by the way. She didn’t know - I mean, how could she - but she was bright and brave and so much like you that it made my chest hurt).  
And that bloody fur coat. Fair enough for the Himalayas, but the Tube? Really?  
(That was a close one - a mistake. I was aiming for Vastra but the coordinates were off and I nearly had another run-in with the Great Intelligence. Not nice).  
Every time, I duck out of the way, or Me pulls me back into the diner, and there we go again. Ships passing in the night.

  
I wonder, sometimes, if you hear about me. If the Peladonians that you talked to about the disappearances mentioned a woman with brown hair and no heartbeat. If the people you saved on Betelgeuse told you that you weren’t the first alien to land there that day.  
I know it wouldn’t mean anything. I know that. I’d just be another loose end that got lost somewhere along the way, something to be idly wondered about as you move on to the next place, with the next person. But just once, as you saunter away in your velvet jacket or your big stupid scarf, I would like to be something more than a ghost.  
I know, I know. No chance, big universe-ending consequences if you remember who I am, I understand all that.  
But.  
  
I served you dinner last week. You and two kids and a gobby Australian, somewhere on the way to Heathrow. (I liked the Australian. She reminded me of me). You read the menu through your little half-moon glasses and ordered chocolate milkshakes and sounded very pleased with yourself for picking something out of the ordinary. When you paid the bill (with something which was definitely not legal tender anywhere in this galaxy), you smiled at me and apologised for the heated mathematical debate that had broken out between your younger companions. After we’d taken off again, I locked myself in my room and cried.  
I swear I don’t keep doing it on purpose. But always, there you are.  
  
I didn’t even want to go to bloody Scotland, but Me read this book and got obsessed with the Romans and...there we were. And there you were, again.  
This time, it was you. My you, I mean. Grey-haired stick insect, wandering across the Scottish Highlands. If I’d been there, I would’ve said you were back in your natural habitat. I wonder what your friend said - the pretty one, in the red jumper. I hope she’s still giving you hell; like Vastra says, you’ll always need it.  
  
I don’t know where I’m going with this. I’m not sure I can stop running towards the danger - I’m sure it’ll keep finding me anyway - but maybe I can stop running towards you.  
Until the next time, Doctor.


End file.
